Measuring the Psychological Complexity of Software Maintenance Tasks with the Halstead and McCabe Metrics

IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering

Volumn SE-5, Issue 2, 1979, Pages 96-104

  Love, Tom ^a   Sheppard, Sylvia B ^a   Milliman, Phil ^a   Borst, M A ^a  

^a GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY   (United States)

Author keywords

Index Terms Commenting complexity metrics documentation Halstead; s E human factors in software engineering McCabe; s v(G) mnemonic variable names modern programming practices modifications software science structured programming

Indexed keywords

COMPUTER PROGRAMMING;

EID: 0018444615     PISSN: 00985589     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1109/TSE.1979.234165     Document Type: Article

References (33)

1. [l] L. H. Putnam, “Measurement data to support sizing, estimating and control of the software life cycle,” in Proc. COMPCON ‘78, IEEE, New York, 1978.
2. M. H. Halstead, “Natural laws controlling algorithm structure,” ACM SIGPLANNotices, vol. 7, 1972, 19–26.
3. ―, “A theoretical relationship between mental work and machine chine language programming,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-67, 1972.
4. ―, “Software physics: Basic principles,” Thomas J. Watson Res. Center, IBM, Yorktown Heights, NY, Tech. Rep. RJ-1582, 1975.
5. ―, Elements of Software Science. New York: Elsevier, 1977.
6. A. B. Fitzsimmons and L. T. Love, “A review and evaluation of software science,” ACM Computing Surveys, vol. 10, pp. 3–18, 1978.
7. Y. Funami and M H. Halstead, “A software physics analysis of Akiyama's debugging data,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-144, 1975.
8. L. Cornell and M. H. Halstead, “Predicting the number of bugs expected in a program module,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-205, 1976.
9. M. H. Halstead, “Using the methodology of natural science to understand software,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-190, 1976.
10. R. D. Gordon and M. H. Halstead, “An experiment comparing FORTRAN programming times with the software physics hypothesis,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-167, 1975.
11. M. H. Halstead, “An experimental determination of the ‘purity’ of a trivial Algorithm,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-73, 1972.
12. N. Bulut and M. H. Halstead, “Impurities found in algorithm implementation,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-111, 1974.
13. J. L. Elshoff, “Measuring commercial PL/1 programs using Hal-stead‘s criteria,” SIGPLANNotices, vol. 11, pp. 38–46, 1976.
14. T. J. McCabe, “A complexity measure,” IEEE Trans. Software Eng., vol. SE-2, 308–320, Dec. 1976.
15. M. O. Rabin, “Complexity of computations,” Commun. Ass. Comput. Mach., vol. 20, pp. 625–633, 1977.
16. D. Campbell and J. C. Stanley, Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Designs for Research. Chicago: Rand-McNally, 1976.
17. S. B. Sheppard and L. T. Love, “A preliminary experiment to test influences on human understanding of software,” in Proc. 21st Annu. Meeting of the Human Factors Society, vol. 21, 1977, pp. 167–171.
18. E. W. Dijkstra, “Notes on structured programming,” in Structured Programming, O. J. Dahl, E. W. Dijkstra, and C. A. R. Hoare, Ed. New York: Academic, 1972.
19. T. Tenny, “Structured programming in FORTRAN,”Datamation, vol. 20, pp. 110-115, 1974.
20. G. J. Hahn and S. S. Shapiro, “A catalogue and computer program for the design and analysis of orthogonal symmetric and asymmetric fractional factorial experiments,” Corporate Res. Dev., General Electric Company, Schenectady, NY, Tech. Rep. 66-C-165, 1966.
21. R. E. Kirk, Experimental Design Procedures for the Behavioral Sciences. San Francisco: Freeman, 1968.
22. G. E. P. Box, W. G. Hunter, and J. S. Hunter, Statistics for Experiments. New York: Wiley, 1978.
23. K. J. Ottenstein, “A program to count operators and operands for ANSI-FORTRAN modules,” Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue University, Tech. Rep. CSD-TR-196, 1976.
24. L. T. Love, “Relating individual differences in computer programming performance to human information processing abilities,” Ph.D. dissertation, Dep. Psychology, Univ. Washington, 1977.
25. Shneiderman, “Measuring computer program quality comprehension,” Int. J. Man-Machine Studies, vol. 9, pp. 465–478, 1977.
26. “Human factors experiments for developing quality software,” in The Infotech State of the Art Report on Software Engineering. Berkshire, England: Infotech International, Ltd., 1977.
27. S. B. Sheppard, M. A. Borst, B. Curtis, and T. Love, “Factors influencing the understandability and modffiability of computer programs,” Inf. Syst. Programs, General Electric Company, Arlington, VA, 1978.
28. A. L. Edwards, An Introduction to Linear Regression and Correlation. San Francisco: Freeman, 1976.
29. R. D. Gordon, “A measure of mental effort related to program clarity,” Ph.D. dissertation, Comput. Sci. Dep., Purdue Univer-sity, 1977.
30. J. L. Elshoff, “A review of software measurement studies at General Motors Research Laboratories,” in Proc. 2nd Software Life Cycle Management Workshop, IEEE, NY, 1978.
31. E. Chrysler, “Some basic determinants of computer programming productivity,” Commun. Ass. Comput. Mach., vol. 21, pp. 472-483, 1978. 483, 1978.
32. H. Sackman, W. J. Erickson, and E. E. Grant, “Exploratory experimental studies comparing on-line and off-line programming performance,” Commun. Ass. Comput. Mach., vol. 11, pp. 3–11, 1968.
33. A. Laemmel and M. Shooman, “Software modeling studies: Statistical (natural) language theory and computer program complexity,” plexity,” Rome Air Development Center, Griffiss AFB, Tech. Rep. RADC-TR-78-4, vol. II, 1978.